Tag: depression

My intention with this blog is to write about the things I think about, with the goal of eventually synthesizing into meaningful frameworks to simplify things and actionable insights to that are usable. Ultimately I want output that I can do something with – rather than just collecting all this info as I read, listen to podcasts, contemplate and mull over. I’ve been doing that for years. It’s got to come together for something meaningful.

I’m coming off 5 days of being sick. It turns out I really was sick – there was a health reason for derailing, although I still could have managed it better than getting so down on myself.

Bottom line, I was feeling really, really bad and I was so disappointed and frustrated. It feels like I do so much to manage my depression, my moods, my sporadic moments of darkness and apathy, and yet it returns again and again, and I feel like a failure.

Fail, fail again, fail smarter. Accept failure as part of experimentation. Experimentation is about learning.

I stepped back and first thought about what goes into that bad feeling – what are the causes. Only then can I think about experimenting with new strategies to manage.

What triggers these bouts of intense negative states, where I fall into the habits of talking such crap about myself?

Depression

Monthly hormone cycles

Personality factors (perfectionist, self-critical, over-achiever)

Karma

External pressures (work, family, extended family, car, dogs, life)

Physical health

Sleep

Diet (gluten, high glycemic foods)

External noise (barrage of information and technology)

Time (time of day, seasonality)

Self-talk and ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)

One or two at a time might not make an impact, but pile a bunch together and suddenly I’m down a rat hole, feeling like there is no way out. I become immobilized – a common reaction for ENFP types.

Because I crash hard and fast I decided to focus on a few key principles to (1) help me get more resilient in the first place and (2) help me pull myself out faster. Something I can memorize, recite like a mantra, and act on without hesitation.

My initial rev on this is the following:

First, FEEL GOOD

Second, NURTURE RELATIONSHIP

Third, LIVE CREATIVELY

The first one requires some unpacking. Yes, it’s oversimplified. If things were really so easy, that I could just tell myself to feel good, I probably wouldn’t be getting so damn depressed in the first place. On the other hand, sometimes it is that easy – sometimes it is as simple as smacking yourself in the head and reminder you that you have more control than you think.

Usually, though, it’s more complicated. But, it can be broken down into manageable steps and it’s a muscle that can be flexed so that it can become easy.

Let’s focus on the first step – FEEL GOOD. This can be broken into 3 steps:

OFFLOAD

RESET

CHANGE COURSE (if needed)

The first of these is most important – OFFLOAD. Evaluate the negative energy, that negative emotion and negative self talk and ask yourself a few questions.

Is this noise or a meaningful signal?

What’s the source?

Is this worth my attention?

Is this what I choose to spend my energy on?

Use the answers to these questions to make important decisions. If it’s noise, call it noise and ignore it, especially if it’s from an internal source. Too much energy is wasted with negative self-talk and negative chatter about other people or things around you. Ask yourself if it adds any value at all and if not, shut it off. Channeling energy towards negativity costs more than just the loss of that energy – the negativity impacts your health, motivation and creativity, and that’s just the impact on you personally. This effect expands beyond you, to your loved ones and co-workers.

But some negative energy is a signal, and it’s important to recognize and process it, or it will keep coming back and bite you in the ass. Often it’s a sign that your body and/or mind is overloaded and you need to reset, refuel or change course. Notice this and address it early. Ignore it and that negative energy will become a monster and you’ll react poorly, turning to typical bad habits like food or alcohol. Catch it early, read the signal, and redirect the energy or flip it. More on that later.

Evaluate the meaningful signals and prioritize based on urgency and lotus of control. If it’s urgent and you have immediate control, then act. Act soon to get it over with – too much negative energy builds up worrying about something you are procrastinating on. There are better ways to spend that energy.

No matter urgency, there are some things you cannot fix right away, but should start addressing so the fix starts happening – such as health, sleep and diet. Managing personality quirks and karma fall under this too, but take longer to adjust. Still, these need ongoing attention to drive change for the better – otherwise you continue to set yourself up for failure.

Recognize the differences in the various ingredients that create negative energy and that sense of burden and feeling overwhelmed. Deconstruct that negative space enough to parse this out. Bucket and prioritize – offload what’s possible and make decisions with what is left, being very thoughtful of what you want to keep and pay attention to. Make deliberate choices as the decision impacts not only the moment, but your future state.

I don’t handle failure well. But, failure is exactly something that needs to be embraced on this Design Thinking, Experimenting approach to improving one’s life journey.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford

I don’t handle it well because I feel very responsible for getting everything right the first time. It’s not necessarily about being a perfectionist, but rather having very high and specific expectations (which can include imperfections, but maybe not unexpected imperfections). Joel Mark Witt’s article about ENFP Personality Types (which is what I am) calls this out – the need to have things in order. That need makes it difficult to embrace experimentation – cause experimentation and design thinking is basically about testing whether that ‘order’ is right, and chances are, it isn’t, else why would you be experimenting in the first place?

I also don’t handle failure well because I feel ashamed. When I feel sick, I feel guilty. I can’t just let myself be sick – rather, I constantly ask myself, am I really sick? Or am I just being weak and pathetic? I think this is related to my experience with depression and how I’ve managed it. I’ve regarded it as a weakness and a flaw, so when I feel weak because of fatigue or illness, I am quick to question the root cause.

I ‘failed’ these last couple of days – because I didn’t stick these great habits and routines I was developing, because I wasn’t making any progress on my big goals and to-do lists, because I fell back into a number of shitty habits I’m not proud of and that don’t do me any good. And, that all got compounded by the fact that I kept beating myself up over all the failures! Which only made it worse.

Finally, I curled up in bed, with food and a cheese audiobook, and spent most of the next 36 hours there.

The next day I had a sore throat and I was like, hey! I really am sick! Ok, that totally changes things – I thought I was just weak and pathetic because of depression.

Sigh.

So, yeah, things derailed. And guess what, they derail a LOT, and they’re going to derail again and again and again, and I’ll have to start again and again and again. I need embrace the idea of starting again and again. But, with every derailment, there is an opportunity to learn something and try something new.

How do you embrace failure? It might be hard to do when in the moment of failure, but maybe even that perspective is a muscle to flex? There is definitely opportunity to use hindsight differently, less about critical eye on the failure itself, and more of a critical eye on making moments less hurtful. Moments. Not necessarily making everything better, but managing moments better, and not with the lens of trying to avoid failure next time, but just not being so hard on myself when I ‘fail’.

There are signals I can learn to read sooner and react to differently

There are reactions I have that I could change: thoughts, feelings, behaviors. But it may not be about changing them all, rather making some decisions along the way so I feel safer and feel okay.

There are certainly perspectives I have along the way as I step back and ‘evaluate’ myself – and they aren’t exactly very nice.

On the other hand – my reactions work. I’m not necessarily proud of them, but clearly I needed them, or at least needed the outcome.

Still, there are opportunities to fail more gracefully…and more creatively.

Take-away thought to ponder – failing gracefully, what does this mean? Accepting that there are things that cannot be changed? Or just accepting that there always will be failure? Maybe that’s another reason to own our stories; we can look for patterns in failure: are there signals that we should stop trying to change something, or to stop treating failures so painfully like failures?

Accept your imperfections and embrace them as things that make you who you are. No one is perfect, we all know that, so offering up grace to yourself and allowing yourself peace is important. Being hard on yourself is okay, but realizing you are human is also necessary. – Megan Gilger

This begins the experiment of telling my story and letting my story guide the next chapter. To use Shawn Phelp‘s phases, this is about Act 1, the Setting, and, I suppose also Act 2, the Turning Points, all in service to discover Act 3 – the Character Arc, where will my story take me.

What if I were to accept the fact that depression has been a significant part of my life, instead of regard it as a flaw or weakness?

What if I were to accept the fact that depression has been a significant part of my life, instead of regard it as a flaw or weakness? What if I share my experiences with it, instead of hiding them, and being ashamed? It has defined me, and brought me where I am now, and underscores many of the concepts and ideas I eagerly explore now. What if, instead of regarding is at a flaw, I embrace it as a super power and reflect on what it gave me, rather than how it made me suffer?

I would like to get to a place where I can genuinely help others with depression, rather than avoid them because of the fear I have of sliding over that precipice again, and not being able to come back. I know how much it hurts, I know just how intense the helplessness is, and I know just how difficult it is to come out the other side. But I also know it can be done, and I know that I’m stronger and better because of it.

I’m not sure how far to dive into this, though, because it actually still terrifies me. Am I strong enough to face it, rather than hide from it? Is there value in doing that? I’m scared of opening a box that is going to be very difficult to close. So maybe I’ll tread carefully with that for now, and focus less on the darkness, and more on the positive outcomes.

I realize the world has come a very long way in the 25 years since I first struggled with it. Thank goodness.

A few things in particular have made me give more thought to my experience with depression – things I’ve learned that help me understand more about it, how to manage it, and maybe how to help others who struggle with it. As I read more about it I realize the world has come a very long way in the 25 years since I first struggled with it. Thank goodness.

They tried to convince me my problem was repressed memories of my father doing inappropriate things – something I know never happened, but the doubts they raised were damaging enough.

I was first diagnosed while in college, although patterns began in high school. I isolated myself, disconnected from friends, and turned to binging, bulimia and self-cutting for coping. I eventually went on Prozac and was in therapy, but both with limited success. Therapy in college involved long silences where the therapist just sat there looking at me with sad eyes, waiting for me to talk, or the psychiatrist telling me my problem was I hadn’t accepted Christ in my life, or together them trying to convince me my problem was repressed memories of my father doing inappropriate things – something I know never happened, but the doubts they raised were damaging enough.

I eventually found better ways to cope, more natural ways, in particular with a adrenaline. I joined a Skydiving Club – that, honestly, did wonders. You can’t possibly depressed when you are 15,000 feet in the air, flying at 90 miles an hour. I began pursuing a degree in Counseling Psychology and met a number of great people – I thought if I can’t get help, I’ll help myself. That was the beginning, I suppose, of my focus on studying people, how we tick, how we can thrive instead of suffer. But it’s been a circuitous journey.

Over the years I dove deep into religious study and spirituality, trying to find ways to cope, read dozens and dozens of self-help books, sought treatment from a variety of caregivers, and went down a number of rat holes of self-destructive behaviors. But, I believe I can say I have overcome the worst of it. There have been very important people along the way who were essential to the process of healing, as were specific events and better management tools. And as I write about this, I realize how important it is and valuable it is to tell the story, to share my gratitude, to appreciate the struggles and celebrate the outcomes. There is joy in all of this – a lot of things to feel very, very good about.

It is so important to take a holistic view of depression, not only in the treatment, but what it can tell us about ourselves.

I jotted down a number of things related to depression, concepts I’ve come to understand as being essential to healthier management of depression, tools to help with thriving instead of surviving; all topics I want to explore as I go. It is so important to take a holistic view of depression, not only in the treatment, but what it can tell us about ourselves.

The importance of telling, reflecting on and appreciating your life story, to celebrate growth, gain insight into your true self and trajectory, and acknowledge the goodness around you, in people, in the world, and in spirit.

Taking a different lens on depression – rather than an illness, a signal of a lack of alignment between your ‘active’ self and your true self. This is a theme I’m following on the Personality Hacker Podcast and blog and I’m eager to learn more.

Thinking more holistically and understanding the building blocks of Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit, and how depression manifest itself when these building blocks and their connections haven’t been optimized. For example, the importance of the right diet to include fats and Omega 3’s, promoting neurogenesis.

Related, but a separate bucket – this theme that in terms of depression as reflection of energy misalignment, it problem is rooted in the heart, and not the brain or mind. I’ve always been so focused on the mind and ‘fixing it’, but learning that there are opportunities to care for the heart, core feelings and connections and relationships with people around me. This is certainly a theme that has been evolving with my energy work with Martin.

The perspective of your personality, your quirks, your tendencies as your Super Powers, and not signs of weakness or being broken.

Depression and difficult emotions as signs and signals, not hurdles or punishment; by listening, it gives us direction as to where we should be going, it can guide us to our true self.

With awareness of our true self and acceptance, we thrive and become healthy members of a bigger community that is or at least significantly overlaps with the Creative Class. Discovering and identifying with the True Self is more important now than ever, not only for our personal health, but the health of our families, communities, even our world.

Discovering and identifying with the True Self is more important now than ever, not only for our personal health, but the health of our families, communities, even our world.

A lot of big stuff here. But it’s exciting, invigorating!

And I’m realizing that although I started this blog with the focus that this was for me more than anyone else (so as not to get hung up about what others thought), I do look forward to conversations. This isn’t a journey to take alone. The next step is to reach out and make more connections, and not be afraid.